The Holganix product appeared to have a a lot of good benificial actives in it. When you look at the percentages of bacillius subtilis etc, they are about the same as a lot of products. When I scanned the msds , they buy a component of yeast from bud beer. I feel the product has merit in a overall fertility program. That is how I approach Bio stimulants etc. My program includes fertilization plus Bio stimulants and organic matter.

The good thing when talking with the holganix folks, they do know there stuff. The owner built a multi million lawn Co. The other dude has several degrees in agronomy etc.

Just remember we will never find a fixall product in the green industry, but some products can compliment and improve upon what we already have in place.

I tried it out on a small scale in 2011, (free sample). It didnt make a noticeable difference one way or the other, but I gave it a larger shot in 2012 (250 accounts, 1.5 million sq ft) since at the very least I could cut my pesticide rates and save time by not having to clean up granular off hard surfaces.

General application differences:
Liquid is so much easier, no clean up, no mess...

I can change my rates etc from one lawn to the next because I can custom mix on site and I am not locked into a pallet of this or a pallet of that....

Holganix observations (nothing scientific)

It smells nice

ok serious

These lawns were irrigated as are 95% of the lawns we treat.

as far as irrigation (I did not have them change anything from what they normally do) and they definately held their color better than normal in July and August

The lawns also held color better over the summer than comparable lawns treated with scu granular.

We also let 9 and almost 10 weeks go on some of our accounts between our late spring and fall apps (mostly because of weather and a little bit of poor scheduling on my part) but it ended up being a good test as the lawns looked as good if not better than the ones that had been serviced on regular schedule with scu.

Lawns that have filtered sun or seemed to struggle over the past few years showed an increase in color and density. To the point of the client asking what we did different in some cases.

We were able to reduce our rate of herbicide by roughly 50%, imidicloprid by 25% (and we will reduce to 50% this year) We switched from Dythiopyr to Barricade, so we went with one app instead of the 2 we had done previously. Found we go better results on crabgrass control, we used almost no post crab grass, (but I attribute alot of that to using a liquid and getting better coverage on edges)

I did a blanket post emergent broadleaf, the reasoning behind that (I know it goes against IPM etc) but I figured that if I cut my herbicide rate in 1/2, I could blanket one time and cut out a lot of spot treating. By cutting out the spot treating I saved time, but also ended up using less herbicide over the course of the year. It also cut down on weed complaints as well.

I ended up saving money on product, time on the jobs, a ton of warehouse space, and I felt that the lawns ended up looking better as well.

I know many of you dont like the idea of the refrigeration or dont have a warehouse to keep the fridge, but I would say dont let that be the only deterent.

The support I have been given has been awesome, from my sales rep, to the local vendor up to the owners. They have helped every step of the way, making me comfortable with the product, helping get my equipment changed from granular to liquid, marketing and just general business help whenever I have a question.

I guess the best endorsement I can give is this:
Next month I am trading in my fridge for a bulk tank with a rapid fill system. This system will meter out the Holganix and allow me to load water into my trucks at 60gpm, also metered. (my warehouse has no water pressure or volume and it takes 45 minutes to fill 200 gall)

Also, let me add, I am not selling an "organic program" we are selling organic based, "the best of both worlds" so to speak. My customers seem to want the Yankee stadium look but want to feel good that we are reducing our inputs. So this system fits that bill.

Let me know if anybody has any questions that I might have missed addressing above.

Bryan

__________________"What do you mean we canít get rid of those weeds in time? Then go over there and put some fancy signs with Latin names in front of them."Walt Disney

1. Essential Oils open the pores in the weeds. This in turn means more product enters the plant so you need less to control.

2. Our compost tea contains organic Auxins. Dicamba which is a component of three way type herbicides is a synthetic Auxin or growth regulator. When you combine the two you get a synergistic result.

3. Sugars in our product increase the elasticity of the pre-emergent barrier.

Reduction in usage is not seen in all pesticides.

Thanks for the response,,, definately something to consider...

Spraying weeds with open pores is definately better than closed pores, so that could make sense... I would think 'Timing" would be an issue, however...

The interaction between auxins and Dicamba is something that I'd have to research... As I recall, Dicamba was one element especially effective on Creeping Charlie, so perhaps I should research 'auxins'...

The "Elasticity" of the pre-m barrier is something that indicates that the "Barrier" is a real physical barrier created by the pre-m... Of course there is no such barrier in that sense, only the dissolved AI spread evenly across the surface of the soil, hoping to be ingested by as many germinating seeds as possible...

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Now that I know that clay's texture(platelets) has nothing to do with water infiltration, percolation, or drainage,,, I wonder what does...
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* "Penn State researchers observed that the addition of Holganix to a herbicide improved control of white clover. They also found that using Holganix decreased the amount of herbicide needed by 66% to produce the same post-emergence clover control. The Purdue study showed that the addition of Holganix to a herbicide produced encouraging results for broadleaf plantain suppression, decreasing the need for a herbicide by 75%. Dr. Neidermyer reports, “Of interest, Holganix alone provided suppression of both dandelion and buckhorn plantain.” *

This last comment about Holganix alone suppressing dandelions and buckthorn plantain, has my interest now... Is this explained by the Auxins in Holganix??? I'm assuming that Dr. Neidermeyer is legit, but a more detailed report on his "reasoning" would be good...

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Now that I know that clay's texture(platelets) has nothing to do with water infiltration, percolation, or drainage,,, I wonder what does...
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